Every year, on Christmas Eve in that time when night's just fallen and the candles come out, but all the snow keeps the world light, Becca, Chess and Austin would tack up and go hacking through the village. They would take candy canes in saddle bags and give them to people in town, or hang them on trees as they passed. Children would gather to pat the horses, who were dressed in bells or antlers and they'd drink mugs of hot chocolate before singing carols on their way back to the stables.

Then they moved to Lakewood and the tradition continues this year.

On Christmas Eve, the horses will all be in until evening, so they're full of energy and breathing the smell of snow and toffee apples swirling through the barn. The three friends, Twitch and Alec will dress the horses in bells and wreaths, gather armfuls of sweets and hack through the woods to Creaky Tree to bring some Christmas spirit to the snowy streets.

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This is my - belated - Christmas Present to a number of people here on DA. I posted the Christmas List journal a while back so I had plenty of time, but as usual, life interfered, so I'm sorry this is four days late. If I could have gifted more of you, I would have, but this has taken me days on days as it is, so I had to really whittle down my list.

So...here goes From the front, folks!
Listed by deviant name, rider's name, then horse's [something to help ID them] and lastly a random comment

*Zephyrra's Aubrie and Hawk [the fleabitten grey fearlessish leader] You can't see it too well, but he has popcorn chains across his sides.
~tangledwoods' Lira and Farlas [the prancing foal in the santa rug] ...Hope Lira doesn't get frostbite with all the traipsing through the snow...
=kittysawrus' Laura and Arian [the dappled grey with the 'unique' square blanket] A welshie - so much fun getting this one's conformation down.
My Twitch and Romany [the mahogany tobiano vanner with a lantern over his head] You guys don't see much of him, so voila! Never mind that he's Twitch's favourite...
*TackRack's Helene and Bacardi [the dark one with the red santa quarter sheet]...and I think Helene's probably colder than Lira - but she has awesome boots, so it's fine.
My Alec and Kiwi [the cream brown one dancing on the spot] yeah - she's not exactly used to Christmas decorations yet. All good practice...
*NightingaleStables' Aimee and Loki [the paint strung up with red and gold garlands] It is possible for markings to murder me and be fun at the same time. Who knew?
~MagicWindsStables' Ryleah and Gylardith [the bright bay balanced on one leg] (shhh). I went for ladylike as asked, and actually - I now want a rug/dress for a horse.
*MissDudette's Cat and Frodo [the Timekin covered in green and white] At least he's warm - and my God, his coat is so much fun to colour!!
~TheOnlyBean with Bean and *MissDudette's Haji [rider in the long coat on the black horse] I had a lot of fun recreating his markings - that white on him is *on him* not part of his jinglebells costume.
My Becca and Matches [the bright chestnut who looks like a runaway carousel horse] Yes, Becca's wearing a sort of Ravenclaw sweater. Sorry. It happened.
*LeavingNeverland's Marianne/Effy and Dagsy [the stripey one in pink and goldish] No words for this - I love colouring him. And I'm not sure who is rider is, so that'll get sorted...
=Quantaria's Tiffany and Promise [the Nordy with red and white booties] Gotta love Nordy crossover bridles - and I'm not sorry about the Snowman on the sweater.
~angoracat's Elsie and Zamora [the brown and white vanner with another lantern over her head] I don't have anything against vanners, promise. I'm insanely fond of the ribbons/dye in her feathers...
My Chess and Aphie [the brown one in the side saddle] can't get tired of these two. And some of my favourite colour schemes in one place.
~WesternSpice's Trip and Sense [the brown bay with a bow on her tail] I stuck as close to the ref as I could, and she's a lovely colour with all her muted dapples. Cool leg marking, too.
~SkyeWilde-Stables' Amy and Emma [the red one in the side saddle, with the cooler mane] Emma's curly mane and tail was great fun and I really love the combination of holly and the purple blanket.
*ElreniaGreenleaf's David and Tamarind [the ticked off mulberry grey in PINK] Humiliation and girly was wanted, so hopefully the tinsel, bells and candy cane wraps meet standards. I love his colour and all the shades in it, but the best bit was his expression.
My Austin and Toeki [the twit in the hat bringing up the rear] Hehe...Austin was clearly forced into that Santa hat...not naming names...

The dogs are, from the left, Ace (Becca's Dalmatian), Hunter (~WesternSpice's collie mutt) and Peanut (Chess' Sheltie cross). And there's Rusalka, my fawnling, too. Our other two dogs don't come on the hack - Bagel's too old, and Moby just shoots about the legs, barking his head off.

Merry Christmas, Guys! Hope you all had a great one!

Extra: I don't know what you'd want them for, but on the off chance you do, I'm happy to crop out your single horse and rider pair (hiding the horses that may overlap them, or just showing them full size on their own). The cropped image will have a watermark, and will still have the unedited background - ie, empty footprints from hidden horses, but you will be able to see the full design if you want to. If you want your horse uploaded on its own, just let me know, and be aware that the artwork should not be posted off of DA or claimed as your own.
Examples of this:

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Holy ---- this took ages! I've loved doing it - I honestly have. So many different horses, in colour, breed and personality, so it was fun to try getting them all down. Hopefully those who weren't specific about costumes are happy with the ones I've given you, but If I've got anything really wrong, please tell me and I'll try to fix it.

Some other points:

This is 3000 pixels wide.
There are 42 characters in this.
I tried to balance out the number of horses walking, trotting and cantering.
There are over 200 layers, not counting ones that were hidden when no longer necessary - like sketches.
I imagine this to be on the route back to the Farm, rather than on the way down to Creaky Tree. They don't have bags of sweets and treats any more, just the lanterns, so

Due to the number and size of this, all the horses are a little more 'toon' than realistic, but each was lined, coloured and shaded individually with their own costumes.

And there is a little sense to their arrangement (at least, I thought there was). Twitch and Alec are pretty good friends now - at any rate, they like each other's company, and Romany being the docile sweetheart he is, he's ideal company for Kiwi while she's getting used to hacking out. Then Aimee is Alec's sister, though she's at Nightingale Stables, so they're catching up while hacking. Tamarind was going to be with them, but he ended up near the back after kicking up a hissy fit about his tinsel - Plus, Austin could do with a guy around. And I was talking to ~WesternSpice a while back about Trip's ability to feel cold - so I imagined that shortly before this - Chess had galloped up behind him and shoved a snowball down his jacket - hence the race started. Sorry, Trip (and Spicey). The foal, Farlas, is up the front so he doesn't panic with the crowd. And Bean and Cat are sisters, so they're kind of close together.
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If *LeavingNeverland is agreeable, I'd also like to put this in the Kaimanawa Challenge as some socialisation experience for Kiwi, just adding that so that everyone with a horse in here knows

And if anyone with characters in this wish to feature it somewhere for whatever reason, please note me about it

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And I think that's it. Any questions, go ahead and ask. There's probably tons of this - process and finished piece - which I haven't mentioned or whatever. I hope everyone's happy with their giftie ^^

I haven't counted hours - but this is practically all I've been doing, between much needed breaks for over a week. So its a lot.
No references used for the poses or costumes, but I did look at everyone's horse refs and such to get the characters right.
Art is copyright to *Tattered-Dreams
All the characters belong to those people listed above.
Do not take, copy, edit, redistribute or manipulate.